Last Night At School Committee

Latest Episodes:

Boston School Committee: 11·1·23 Meeting Recap Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

Last night was a short meeting beginning with the Superintendent’s Report, in which Superintendent Skipper addressed the news earlier this week that nine members of the School Committee’s English Learners (EL) Task Force resigned in response to the BPS inclusion plan presented at the last meeting. The plan called for full inclusion of multilingual learners and students with disabilities into general education classrooms, but it did not include information about budget, professional development, or teacher recruitment, nor did it address support for increased bilingual education programs in which multilingual learners learn core subjects in their native languages while learning English. This led Task Force members – who represent the leading minds in multilingual learning across Boston – to resign their seats while continuing to advocate for a better path forward. Superintendent Skipper doubled down on the district’s proposed inclusion plan, which is awaiting feedback from the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

The Superintendent then discussed a memo released by BPS as the meeting was beginning on the new exam school admissions policy – outlining the 2021 process that led to the new policy, data from the first full year of implementation, and recommendations for further study. (For a full recap of the 2021 exam school process, check out yesterday’s special episode of “Last Night at School Committee.”) The memo highlighted outcome disparities among students who received bonus points despite not being economically disadvantaged and students who are economically disadvantaged but did not receive bonus points, calling into question whether the bonus points are necessary or are accomplishing their intended goal. Among the recommendations in the memo is further consideration of allocating these points to individuals rather than whole schools, a change that has been recommended by School Committee member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez.

The only report of the night was a presentation from the Office of Human Capital – an annual update on hiring and workforce diversity. This presentation mirrored the presentation that is given every year at this time, and it lacked key data on teacher performance, evaluation, metrics, or goals.

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Bonus Episode: How BPS Changed the Exam School Policy Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

On July 14, 2021, the Boston School Committee unanimously approved a new admissions policy for Boston's three exam schools: Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science. Now, after the policy’s first full year of implementation, questions have been raised about its “unintended consequences.”

School Committee members and the public have called for changes to be made to this policy to address these unintended consequences, and at the last School Committee meeting, Superintendent Mary Skipper promised to prepare a memo for tonight’s meeting outlining the historical context and rationale for the policy change.

In anticipation of that discussion tonight, we thought it might be helpful for our listeners to hear excerpts directly from the 2021 Exam School Admissions Task Force meetings and School Committee meetings where the new policy was conceived, proposed, and approved. Today, we recap those events in a special bonus episode of “Last Night at School Committee.”

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Deep Dives: How To Improve Public Schools Oct 26, 2023

Show notes

School districts across the country are facing similar challenges, and “Deep Dives” aims to unpack why things are the way they are and what it will take to create change. In each episode, Jill Shah and Ross Wilson bring together national experts for a roundtable discussion about a key issue in our schools - diving deep into root causes and innovative solutions.

Today, in the first episode of “Deep Dives,” Jill and Ross are joined by John Deasy, President of the Bezos Family Foundation and a former superintendent of several large school districts - including Los Angeles and Prince George’s County. John has spent four decades as an educator, school leader, superintendent, and education policy expert, and we talk with John about the current state of public education, the biggest issues facing school districts, and what it will take to reimagine the status quo and improve public schools nationwide.

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Boston School Committee: 10·18·23 Meeting Recap Oct 19, 2023

Show notes

Last night’s meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, in which we heard positive updates on transportation. Superintendent Skipper shared that on-time bus performance has dramatically improved since last year, with data from September showing 84% of buses were on time in the morning and 96% arrived within fifteen minutes. Bus times in the afternoon showed similar trends. The Superintendent spent the rest of her report providing an update on the exam school admissions process. At the last School Committee meeting, the Committee had a lengthy discussion about amending the allocation of ten bonus points. Last night, Superintendent Skipper announced that she is compiling data requested by Committee members on the timeline and rationale behind the new admissions policy and will share that memo at the next meeting. Members asked several questions about transportation, exam schools, and the recently released facilities condition dashboard, with one member pointing out that the confusing layout and lack of underlying data in the dashboard makes it difficult for parents to understand the condition of their child’s school.

Concern around the exam school admissions policy was also a major focus of public comment last night, with many students testifying that they feel they are “unintended consequences” of the new policy as it is mathematically impossible for them to gain admission to their first choice school. Public comment also featured testimony from numerous students and community members at the O’Bryant who expressed frustration with the proposed relocation of the school to West Roxbury.

The School Committee heard two reports last night, beginning with a state-mandated quarterly report on transformation schools, which are schools labeled by the State as requiring intervention. The Superintendent’s team highlighted concerning trends regarding certain student subgroups and showed data demonstrating low growth among students at transformation schools, leading members to question why the district is doubling down with more resources to its existing transformation schools approach.

The second and final report of the evening was on inclusive education in the district.The Superintendent’s team outlined a vision for every classroom to be fully inclusive, with special education students and multilingual learners all learning in general education classrooms alongside their peers. Concerning data was presented regarding students in certain subgroups who are disproportionately deemed to need special education services, but there was no discussion of the root causes of this issue or how it will be addressed. There was also no clear plan for moving to a full inclusion model, nor was there information about budget, staffing, or process for engaging families.

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Trailer: “Deep Dives,” Presented by Last Night at School Committee Oct 12, 2023

Show notes

“Deep Dives,” a new ongoing podcast series from the Shah Family Foundation, explores the biggest issues impacting America’s schools, bringing together local and national experts to discuss why things are the way they are and what it takes to create change. Listen to the first episode in your podcast feed on Thursday, October 26.

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Ep. 93, Last Night @ School Committee: 10/4 Meeting Recap Oct 05, 2023

Show notes

Last night’s School Committee meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, which led to a lengthy discussion of the exam school admissions policy in response to a request from member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez to amend the allocation of the ten bonus points. First, Superintendent Skipper spoke about the release of a facilities condition dashboard that gives each building in the district a condition score. She also discussed a recent open house at the West Roxbury Education Complex for O’Bryant families and announced plans to move forward with the previously-announced relocation of the O’Bryant to this location. There was no update on plans for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which currently shares a facility with the O’Bryant.

The Superintendent went on to talk about the exam school admissions policy, saying she understands concerns regarding flaws in the policy but cannot change the policy at this time. She cited several reasons why BPS is unable to make any changes, including a five year waiting period included in the policy; lack of available data; complexity of applying data on an individual level; and respect for the task force that developed this new policy. Member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez pushed back on each of these justifications, pointing out that nothing requires them to wait five years; the task force changed their proposed policy at the eleventh hour; the individual-level data already exists at the state level; the current policy makes it mathematically impossible for students in certain schools to get into their first choice exam school; and allocating the bonus points to individuals rather than whole schools would better meet their original intention of providing opportunity to economically disadvantaged students. These arguments were echoed by public commenters who expressed frustration with the district’s unwillingness to address the flaws in this policy.

After votes on new union agreements and a charter amendment for Boston Green Academy, the remainder of the meeting was spent discussing the district’s 2023 MCAS results. The Superintendent’s team indicated that the district made improvements from last year, noting they are no longer performing in the bottom 10% of districts statewide and are now labeled as “not requiring assistance or intervention.” Many schools showed year-over-year growth, though BPS leaders acknowledged the need for further improvement, particularly among multilingual learners. While BPS named the schools who showed substantial improvement in their scores, we did not hear what those schools are doing that contributed to their improvement.

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Ep. 92, Last Night @ School Committee: 9/27 Meeting Recap Sep 28, 2023

Show notes

Last night’s School Committee meeting began with remarks from Chair Jeri Robinson in which she addressed her comments at the last School Committee meeting on the troubled state of Boston Public Schools. In her remarks last night, Chair Robinson claimed that her unscripted comments were used to promote a negative image of the district and that public criticism of the district following her remarks was unproductive. These comments struck a negative chord with several community members during public comment last night, with two commenters directly addressing the Chair’s remarks in their testimony.

The meeting continued with the Superintendent’s Report, which included brief updates on MCAS results, transportation, and enrollment, all of which will be covered in greater detail at next week’s meeting. The School Committee then heard a number of standard reports on collective bargaining agreements and a charter amendment for Boston Green Academy. The final report of the night was an annual report from the Boston Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SpEdPAC). The SpEdPAC Chair and Vice Chair presented on their strategic initiatives for the coming year and outlined key priorities, noting that all 12,000 BPS students with special learning needs are unique and there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to special education.

The meeting concluded with new business, which began with remarks from Dr. Stephen Alkins applauding the special education presentation and requesting that future School Committee conversations be similarly structured with deep dives on key topics. School Committee member Brandon Cardet-Hernandez concluded the meeting by raising several additional items. First, he asked follow-up questions on last week’s discussion of the Green New Deal, pressing on when a master facility plan will be released and how the facility assessment rubric will be structured. The Superintendent responded by saying that there will be small facility improvements this spring, with more decisions to be made in conjunction with budget cycles over the next two years. Mr. Cardet-Hernandez then reiterated a request made in previous meetings that the School Committee amend the exam school admissions policy to award the ten bonus points based on an individual’s socioeconomic status rather than that of an entire school, and the Superintendent said this will be discussed at next week’s meeting.

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Ep. 91, Last Night @ School Committee: 9/13 Meeting Recap Sep 14, 2023

Show notes

Last night was the first School Committee meeting held in-person since the start of the pandemic, and it was conducted in a hybrid format with both in-person and remote public testimony. The meeting began with the Superintendent’s Report, which featured a number of positive back-to-school updates, including a low number of teacher vacancies, a high number of schools with fully operational kitchens, and improvements in on-time bus performance. There are still 10 percent of educators without certification and further improvements needed to bus performance, but it was clear that the district has made progress since last year and demonstrated signs of rebound from many issues brought on by the pandemic.

However, this positive update was not reflected in public comment, in which we heard from families frustrated with insufficient services and support structures in the district, nor was it reflected in the remarks made by Committee members later in the meeting. After votes approving a new admissions policy for Madison Park and approving a rating of “proficient” for Superintendent Skipper’s annual performance evaluation, School Committee Chair Jeri Robinson offered shocking testimony about the many ways in which she believes the Boston community is failing its students, calling city councilors, neighborhoods, school employees and parents to task for not leaning into or demanding a better educational experience for the district’s students. She continued by describing her perception of what she deemed to be a “failing school system” and buildings that “should be condemned.” The Chair did not outline a path toward improvement or acknowledge her ability as School Committee Chair to partner with city leadership and right the ship.

The only report of the evening was an update on capital planning in the district. Billed as a discussion of the rubric with which facilities across the district will be evaluated, the report included neither clear metrics nor timelines for facility assessment and improvement, leading Vice Chair Michael O’Neill to seek clarity about the process. The discussion last night was reminiscent of the early days of BuildBPS – the district’s last capital planning process launched nearly a decade ago – which did not achieve its stated objective of facility improvement and consolidation.

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Ep. 90, Last Night @ School Committee: 8/31 Meeting Recap Aug 31, 2023

Show notes

Last night was the first School Committee meeting of the new school year, and it began by introducing the Committee’s newest member, Chantal Lima Barbosa. The first report of the evening was on the results of an external investigation into allegations that BPS leaders discriminated against administrators of color, which concluded that there were no findings of racial discrimination. The meeting continued with the Superintendent’s Report, which focused on back-to-school readiness. Superintendent Skipper shared that hundreds of new educators, bus drivers, bus monitors, and food service workers have been hired, addressing the large number of vacancies from last year. She also announced that, by the end of this semester, over 100 school kitchens will be fully operational and provide daily, scratch-cooked “My Way Café” meals, more than double the number of operational kitchens from last year. The Superintendent’s team also shared that all bus routes have been assigned and half have successfully performed test runs, with the goal of concluding all test runs before school begins next Thursday. The Superintendent then discussed facilities assessment – a topic highlighted in news coverage over the last year in light of plans to reconfigure BPS high schools and polling data concerning a lack of satisfaction with high school options. She shared that a rubric to assess facility conditions will be determined based on feedback from public hearings over the coming months, and a public tool with information about each building will be available later this fall.

After a brief public comment period, the Committee heard two additional reports. The first was a revised admissions policy for Madison Park, addressing concerns that the previously-announced policy presented unnecessary barriers. The revised policy calls for a letter of interest from the applicant, rather than an artifact and two letters of recommendation, and it received a positive response from Committee members. However, questions remain as to whether BPS plans to end its policy of administratively assigning students to Madison Park who do not choose to go there (currently 30% of the student body), and the Superintendent said she will have more information on this at a later date. The second report was the Committee’s evaluation of the Superintendent, which highlighted divisions among members in how they perceive Superintendent Skipper’s performance over the past year. Members acknowledged that this was a difficult transition year in which the Superintendent sought to address significant issues she inherited from the previous administration, and they gave her an overall rating of “proficient.”

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Ep. 89, Last Night @ School Committee: 7/26 Meeting Recap Jul 27, 2023

Show notes

Last night’s School Committee meeting was a special meeting with only one agenda item: Superintendent Skipper’s self-evaluation of her performance over the past school year. Superintendent Skipper framed her evaluation in four standards: instructional leadership, management and operations, family and community engagement, and professional culture. For each standard, the Superintendent provided a list of areas in which she felt BPS made progress over the past year but did not provide baseline data or measurable goals. This led to numerous questions from School Committee members seeking to understand how these areas relate to one another and the district’s goals within each of these areas for the year ahead. The report did not touch on student achievement data or goals to improve student outcomes, leading Chair Jeri Robinson to ask how these achievements will be tangible to the many students who still go to failing schools each day.

Chair Robinson concluded the meeting by announcing that, over the coming weeks, each School Committee member will write their own evaluation of Superintendent Skipper, and these evaluations will be presented at the next meeting on Wednesday, August 30.

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